The document discusses strategies for improving collaboration between SEO professionals and developers to implement technical changes effectively. It emphasizes the importance of understanding team dynamics, setting appropriate KPIs, and creating a shared roadmap for SEO initiatives. The author outlines a successful case study at Pendragon PLC where SEO requirements were organized into a single epic for better resource management and implementation.

1. How to make friends and
influence developers
Stephen Kenwright
@stekenwright

3. How long have you been waiting for the technical change you’re
most desperate to get implemented?
@stekenwright
< 1 month
1-6 months
6-12 months
12-24 months
Longer than 2 years
Will Critchlow / Moz.com
21.1%
36.8%
15.8%
26.3%

4. When do you think it will happen?
@stekenwright
Weeks
<6 months
6-12 months
1+ years
Never
Will Critchlow / Moz.com
10.5%
15.8%
10.5%
31.6%
31.6%

5. Is it a big deal?
@stekenwright
Not too bad
A serious frustration
Stopping us hitting KPIs
It’s cramping the
performance of the whole
company
Will Critchlow / Moz.com
10.5%
42.1%
26.3%
26.3%

6. @stekenwright
“Developer experience matters!”
deepcrawl.com/blog/webinars/making-javascript-work-for-search-martin-splitt

7. Start with an
audit
@stekenwright

8. Start with a
conversation
@stekenwright

9. ● What’s in the roadmap right now?
● What were the last SEO recommendations you implemented?
● Who’s in the team?
● How do you like to work?
● What are your KPIs hopes and dreams?
Questions to ask
@stekenwright

10. What does your org look like?
@stekenwright
Front end Back end
CSS PHP, Ruby
HTML .NET
JavaScript, Angular JS etc. SQL, MySQL
Apache, IIS

11. Create reports your developers care about
@stekenwright

12. RAG-prioritised
audits
@stekenwright

13. PIE score
@stekenwright

14. e.g. optimise crawl by updating robots.txt
@stekenwright
Potential 8
Importance 9
Ease 9
PIE Score 8 + 9 + 9 / 3 = 8.67

15. You can’t estimate ease without
talking to developers first
@stekenwright

16. Improve your comms with developers
@stekenwright
Client
Client Developer
Client
Client
Client Developer
Client
DeveloperScoping
Recommendation
Implementation
Results Developer
BetterTypical

17. Forwarding
Lighthouse
reports
@stekenwright

18. KPI
frameworks
@stekenwright

19. Developers have their own KPI frameworks e.g. RAIL
@stekenwrightGoogle Developers

20. Find common ground
@stekenwright
Developers might not agree Developers might agree
We should implement AMP The site should be faster
Every page should have a
canonical tag
There should be less duplicate
content
We should render JavaScript
server-side
Search engines should be able
to render the site
We need to update our meta
data
We should make the site
accessible

21. Create KPI frameworks that work for your org
@stekenwright
KPI Starting
score
New score
Critical load 2.5 sec 0.5 sec
Pages crawled 10,000 5,000
Non-200 pages 5,000 1,000

22. Optimising Page Speed is not a
one-off task...so don’t make it one
@stekenwright

23. Time
Investment
Think Build Ship Tweak
How Spotify builds products
@stekenwright

24. It’s everyone’s job to think and
tweak, not just SEO
@stekenwright

25. Hack it on with
Tag Manager
@stekenwright

26. Use your CMS
@stekenwright

27. Vendors are your friends
@stekenwright

28. Talk to the success team
@stekenwright

29. Go to (or live stream) the conference
@stekenwright

30. Read the documentation
@stekenwright

31. Understand your incident
management process
@stekenwright

32. Adding your
client to your
Basecamp
@stekenwright

33. Ask their
developers
about
methodology
@stekenwright

34. @stekenwright
How we got development
resource at Pendragon PLC

35. No visibility on product roadmap
@stekenwright
The frustration

36. Digital expected Web Product to
keep track of recommendations
@stekenwright
The problem

37. Web Product were bending the
rules making any changes at all
@stekenwright
The real problem

38. @stekenwright
Pendragon PLC used Agile Epics

39. Epics organise issues into a single
body of work
@stekenwright

40. Epics are delivered in sprints...
@stekenwright

41. ...so an epic must have a start and
end point
@stekenwright

42. @stekenwright
Pendragon PLC managed epics in Azure boards

43. Product Owner has to find a way to
take a recommendation out of an
email and into an Azure board
@stekenwright

44. If there’s no epic, there’s no Azure
board to add a recommendation to
@stekenwright

45. @stekenwright
The solution was to add all SEO
requirements to a single epic

46. ● Web Product would know how much resource was required and when
they could have it back
● Digital would know what would be done and when
● Digital were forced to be proactive and organised
● Web Product got better briefs
● We could put a value on the epic rather than an individual fix
Benefits
@stekenwright

47. We got our JavaScript site indexed
@stekenwright

48. @stekenwright

49. Product management > coding
@stekenwright
Want to apply dev skills to SEO (in a big org)?

50. @stekenwright
riseatseven.com/careers
SEO Strategist
Front End Developer or Designer

51. The creative SEO agency for people who want more.
Sharp as a tack. Enthusiastic as hell. Experts in our field.